Overnight Connection Problem

[psz]

Yes, I'm posting a support question :-P


Anyway, for the past year, everything has been running fine. People could log in from anywhere in the world (and have... Brazil, USA, England, Poland, etc)

Lag was tollerable.

About three days ago, my 'net connection began to get flakey. The Cable Modem would reset, and things were very laggy.

I traced the problem to Overnet (an app I had this problem with last year as well, and HOPED they had fixed), and removed it (along with some other useless/old software I no longer use.).

I ran an anti-virus, no problems.

I ran Add-Aware, removed a cookie.

None of my network settings have changed in Windows, the NIC, the cable modem, or the router.

For whatever reason, though, I can log onto the shard fine, but people OUTSIDE the LAN cannot. Thus why I say it's an Overnight Problem ;->

The console shows

Client: ###.###.###.###: Connected. [1 Online]
Login: ###.###.###.###: Valid credentials for '<PlayerAccountName>'
Client: ###.###.###.###: Disconnected. [0 Online]

This has been from all players that have attempted to connect.

On their end, they get stuck at the connecting screen to finally
get "The Client couldn't connect to the game server, it must have been
taken down. Please wait a few minutes and try again."

Ideas?

Windows Firewall is off. Router has 2593 TCP open to the server machine (As usual). My IP/DNS has not changed. My NIC is at 100Mb/Full Duplex.

In fact, other than uninstalling Overnet and some old games, NOTHING has changed at all.

[Morxeton]

Have you tried a fresh install of RC0? Or even perhaps B36? Also, have you experienced any other connection problems aside from the cable modem resetting? Have you had problems with running other types of servers like a game server, FTP, etc.?

Have you tried using half-duplex?

[Deacon Frosted]

I personally use Comcast Cable in my town, and my friends server was blocked because its a violation of the terms of service and such, Maybe your ISP noticed something? Or are you using a connection where they allow it?

Just a thought

--Deacon

[Morxeton]

Originally Posted by Deacon Frosted

I personally use Comcast Cable in my town, and my friends server was blocked because its a violation of the terms of service and such, Maybe your ISP noticed something? Or are you using a connection where they allow it?

Just a thought

--Deacon

If his ISP was port blocking his server, then no one would be able to connect at all. In his situation, they are connecting then disconnecting and not reconnecting again. The login process is weird, but it connects, disconnects, then reconnects. They never get to the reconnecting part.

I used to have Comcast when I was living on the east coast. They're pricks. You aren't even allowed to host a game server for you and your friends to play on. They can kiss my ass

[Protius73]

Ive got comcast right now and im hosting a small game server at the moment until i can outsource but i havent noticed any sort of throttle choking other then the standard that they invoke to discourage server hosting ... i know of many friends and aquaintances who use comcast and host a variety of servers ...
Seeing as how they connect and disconnect suggests something is wrong on the server side of things.. soemthing somewhere isnt communicating incoming signals to the server or the signal itself is being dropped... Only suggestions i can think of would be to check to insure you have the latest non corrupted drivers for your network hardware... ive seen a corrupt nic card driver do somecrazy stuff
either that or check your serverlist.cs for any weird changes

[psz]

All other net functions (TCP/FTP/Telnet/Gopher/IRC/IM/etc) work fine.

As I said, this was working for a year, and as soon as I uninstalled some unused games/apps this problem started.

It's not RunUO, as it had been running for three days when this happened.

I've restarted RunUO, the computer, the cable modem, and the router.

I'm almost thinking that Overnet (or one of the other apps) messed up something in Windows' networking. I won't be able to check until I get back home, though.

[Morxeton]

Originally Posted by psz

All other net functions (TCP/FTP/Telnet/Gopher/IRC/IM/etc) work fine.

As I said, this was working for a year, and as soon as I uninstalled some unused games/apps this problem started.

It's not RunUO, as it had been running for three days when this happened.

I've restarted RunUO, the computer, the cable modem, and the router.

I'm almost thinking that Overnet (or one of the other apps) messed up something in Windows' networking. I won't be able to check until I get back home, though.

Yeah, that was my guess too. Perhaps your winsock got corrupted by something Overnet did. You can test that theory out by going to a computer that you know works fine or have someone else do this, and go into the registry and export the "winsock" and "winsock2" registry entries. Delete yours, import those, reboot. It's worth a shot.

I had to do that on my boss's sisters computer. I exported the entries from my computer. If you would like to test this, when I get home from work I can export my entries and send them to you. You're running XP pro?

[awdball]

Originally Posted by psz

All other net functions (TCP/FTP/Telnet/Gopher/IRC/IM/etc) work fine.

As I said, this was working for a year, and as soon as I uninstalled some unused games/apps this problem started.

It's not RunUO, as it had been running for three days when this happened.

I've restarted RunUO, the computer, the cable modem, and the router.

I'm almost thinking that Overnet (or one of the other apps) messed up something in Windows' networking. I won't be able to check until I get back home, though.

My first thought is that if those other ports are still supporting bi-directional communications it might be worth trying to change your port for your server. If you run out of other more useful things to try that is.

[psz]

That was plan A for when I get back.

I will also try another machine on the LAN as the host to test with.

Morx: Yes. XP Pro.

[Mortis]

You could also try uninstalling and reinstalling TCP/IP on your adaptor. In case the stack became corrupted.

I have seen weird things happen when the stack becomes corrupted. Most net applications work but maybe one or two fail.

[psz]

That's my thought. Overnet (or another app) may have been doing something funky, and when I removed it, it "broke" something in networking.

[psz]

Originally Posted by psz

That's my thought. Overnet (or another app) may have been doing something funky, and when I removed it, it "broke" something in networking.

Ok, I give up.

My neice came to my work today to have lunch with her father (my brother works here, too), and she said she was on this morning at ~9am. Along with a couple of other people.

I checked my Server Status a minute ago, and people are on


Whatever. Case closed, I guess :-P